OrgDev Live Conference 2026
7–8 July • Free • Online
This conference is free to attend. If you’d like to support the work behind it and help us cover the costs, you’re very welcome to contribute.
Agenda - Day 1 - Tuesday 7 July 09.30 to 16.30 (British Summer Time)
Careers in Organisation Development
A grounded look at what it takes to build a credible career in OD – Career journeys, Capabilities for the future and What it really means to operate as a practitioner
Looking for the Day 2 schedule? Click here
09:30 to 09:45: Welcome OrgDev Live 2026
09:45 to 10.15: Lessons from 100 Episodes of the OrgDev Podcast
Dani Bacon + Garin Rouch
Founders – Distinction Business Consulting
OrgDev Live Podcast Hosts
After 100 episodes of the OrgDev Podcast and conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners, Dani Bacon and Garin Rouch will share some of the ideas, patterns and lessons that have most shaped their own practice. Expect practical insights, surprising themes and reflections on what really matters for those working to improve organisations, teams and leadership.
Garin Rouch is Co-Founder of Distinction and an award-winning Organisation Development consultant who helps founders, CEOs and leadership teams improve performance, strengthen leadership capability and navigate growth with confidence. Over the past 20 years, he has worked internationally across Europe, North America, the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific. Garin is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, holds an MSc with Distinction in Systemic Leadership and Organisational Development, and co-hosts the OrgDev Podcast.
Dani Bacon is Co-Founder of Distinction and an Organisation Development consultant who helps founders, CEOs and leadership teams improve organisational and leadership effectiveness. Before moving into consulting, she held senior leadership roles including Director of People, giving her first-hand experience of leading change from within organisations. Dani combines strategic insight with practical application, helping leaders strengthen decision-making, build leadership capability and improve team performance. She is also co-host of the OrgDev Podcast.
Connect with Garin on LinkedIn
Email: dani@distinction.live
Email: garinrouch@distinction.live
Website: www.distinction.live
10.15 to 10:30: Coffee Break
10.30 to 11.15: The Polymorphic Organisation and the Practitioner of the Future
Perry Timms
Chief Energy Officer. PTHR
Perry Timms challenges the idea that organisational change is primarily driven by mindset and culture. Instead, he explores how systems, structures and conditions shape what becomes possible. Introducing the concept of the Polymorphic Organisation, Perry will offer practical ways for OD practitioners to shift from changing people to creating the conditions where new forms of thinking, working and organising can emerge.
Perry Timms has over three decades of experience in business change and performance, with the last 23 years in HR/Organisation Development. He ranked Number 1 in HR’s Most Influential Thinkers 2022 (his fifth inclusion in that list) and is now in the HR Most Influential Hall of Fame. He is a 4x Guest Professor, a 2x TEDx speaker, a 3x Author, 4x Engagement 101 Global Influencer plus 2024’s Global People & Culture Icon. Perry is a Chartered Member of the CIPD, a Fellow of the RSA and in 2024 was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in self-managed, democratic organisations, and a Thinkers 360 Top 100 Global HR Influencer.
Perry founded People and Transformational HR 13 years ago. The venture is a (re) Certified BCorporation, a WorldBlu Certified Freedom-Centred organisation, a Global Top 50 Self-Managed Organisation awarded the Haier Institute’s RDHY Certification; is a Gold Standard 4-day Working Week, a 2023 Top 50 EMEA Inspiring Workplace, a Top 2 Most Flexible Workplace on the Flexa Index, a Living Wage employer, and a Climate Positive enterprise.
11:15 to 12:30: Becoming an OD Practitioner – Developing Your Own Practice
Dr. Justine Chinoperekweyi
CEO, Centre for Organization Leadership
and Development
Toby Lindsay
Consultant, developer and PhD candidate
Dr Mark Stringer
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Psychodynamics, Birkbeck Business School
What separates experienced OD practitioners from those who simply collect models and tools? How do we continue to develop our practice in a profession where there are often no easy answers?
In this interactive conversation, Mark Stringer, Justine Chinoperekweyi and Toby Lindsay will explore what effective OD practice looks like, how practitioners develop over time, and the habits that support continued growth. Together, they will discuss reflection, supervision, learning from failure, challenging assumptions, and avoiding some of the common traps that can limit our effectiveness.
Expect an honest and thought-provoking discussion for anyone looking to deepen their impact as an OD practitioner.
About Toby
Toby Lindsay is an organisation development practitioner, educator and researcher working with the realities of change inside complex systems. He supports leaders, teams and OD practitioners navigating scrutiny, constraint and transformation, primarily within health and care. Toby also works with clients across multiple sectors and as an executive coach internationally.
He co-leads The King’s Fund Advanced OD Practitioner Programme, where he works with senior practitioners to deepen their authority, presence and intervention capability. His work focuses on developing OD as a relational, systemic and practice-based discipline, built through inquiry in live organisational contexts rather than abstract models alone.
Toby’s approach is shaped by an understanding of organisations as dynamic assemblages of relationships, structures, histories and material conditions. He is particularly interested in how change actually happens within these entanglements, often without grand plans or heroic leadership, and how practitioners can work skilfully with power, ambiguity and constraint.
His work is grounded in a commitment to forms of organising that expand dignity, participation and possibility. He is drawn to practices that create more open, equitable and enlivening conditions for people to act, develop, relate and contribute, especially in systems under pressure, where narrowing, control and reduction can take hold.
Alongside his consulting, Toby has held senior faculty roles in postgraduate leadership and OD education, including the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Masters in Healthcare Leadership and programme leadership at Roffey Park. He is currently completing a PhD exploring transformation through the lived experience of bankruptcy, examining how change emerges when past events no longer determine what is possible in the present.
His work integrates action learning, systemic inquiry and practitioner development, with a focus on creating the conditions where people, relationships and ideas can take root and evolve. He is interested in what becomes possible when people are able to meet one another differently in their work, beyond habit, beyond role, and beyond the limits of what the system has previously allowed.
About Mark
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Psychodynamics
Subject Group Lead: People, Work and Organizational Psychology / Birkbeck Business School,
Mark has spent over forty years working within organizations across several areas. This has included roles as varied as financial accountancy, Head of Product Management and Marketing, Head of OD, the management of L&D functions and latterly as a Director of both HR and Operations. Along the way, he has won several internal and external facing People related awards.
Within the Department of OP at Birkbeck since 2014 and currently Subject Group Leader, Mark both convenes and teach on several modules, including Organizations and Change Perspectives, HRM Professional Development & Learning and Work and Well Being and continues to supervise numerous research projects at MSc and PhD/Prof Doc levels.
Through teaching, supervision and research, his consistent aim, hope, and focus is to promote the use of interdisciplinary and critical tools to provide new readings and thus, in a small way, support those aiming to change organizational issues for the better.
His PhD research looked at interpreting Employee Engagement via a Lacanian psychoanalytic lens and has a research project nearing completion on the stories of women’s journeys to reach Board level positions. Mark had a chapter looking at differing academic career journeys published via Routledge July 2023.
He is also currently undertaking clinical training as a psychoanalyst and was recently recognized by HR Magazine as one of the UK’s Most Influential Thinkers, both in 2023 and 2024.
Mark was the recipient of the BBK BBS 24-25 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal for excellence in Doctoral studies.
About Justine
Dr. Justine Chinoperekweyi is a distinguished Organization Development (OD) scholar-practitioner and consultant whose work is defined by a commitment to decolonizing management practices and elevating indigenous African wisdom. As the CEO of the Centre for Organization Leadership and Development (COLD) and the Organization Leadership and Development Network (OLDN), he operates at the intersection of theory and practice, advocating for a radical humanist approach to transformation. With a PhD from the University of Lusaka, Justine’s influence spans the globe, having facilitated change initiatives and leadership development across Africa, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. His role as a “gadfly” in the field is marked by a relentless challenge to the status quo, pushing organizations to move beyond the superficial decoration of dysfunction toward substantive, regenerative growth.
Central to Justine’s philosophy is the holistic integration of Ubuntu into the OD lens. He posits that Ubuntu is not merely a cultural sentiment but a foundational value system that binds societies and organizations together, influencing every aspect of culture, relationship-building, and collective creation. In his scholarly contributions, such as his comparative analysis of Ubuntu and Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory, he argues that these frameworks are essentially indivisible, both striving to manifest the human spirit and humanistic principles within organizational life spaces. By embedding Ubuntu—the recognition of our shared humanity and interconnectedness – into his practice, he provides a contextually appropriate antidote to individualistic, Western-centric management models that often fail to achieve lasting cultural fit in diverse environments.
In addition to his focus on indigenous paradigms, Justine is a leading voice in the application of Inner Development Goals (IDGs) as essential skills for sustainable transformation. He utilizes specialized frameworks like Use of Self, Theory U, and Aikido principles to foster personal mastery and effective conflict resolution. His work is particularly impactful in the development of women leaders across sectors, where he applies these human-centered leadership models to empower emerging voices and facilitate whole-system change. As an educator, he mentors the next generation of practitioners, supervising doctoral students and lecturing at universities worldwide, ensuring that the next wave of leadership is grounded in both rigorous research and deep cultural intelligence.
Justine’s professional reach is evidenced by his leadership in high-stakes projects, including workforce optimization for the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and strategic planning for national human rights organizations. A prolific author, his recent book, Rethinking Consulting, encapsulates his critique of the Gilded Cage Phenomenon and offers a roadmap for practitioners to reclaim the humanistic roots of OD. Through his workshops, such as the OD & IDGs Immersion Labs, and his roles within international bodies like the International Society for Organization Development & Change (ISODC), Justine continues to bridge the gap between ancient African wisdom and modern organizational needs, striving to make the humanistic imprimatur of OD visible and vibrant on a global scale.
Contact Mark on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mark-stringer-phd-msc-frsa-afhea-chartered-mcipd-26125310/
Contact Toby on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobylindsay/
Contact Justine on LinkedIN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justine-chinoperekweyi-ph-d-rodc-coldc-10b45056/
12:30 to 13:15: Lunch and informal networking
During the lunch break, we’ll open a number of optional breakout rooms for anyone who would like to connect with fellow attendees, continue conversations from the morning or meet other OD practitioners from around the world.
Equally, if you’d prefer to take a proper break, grab some lunch or step away from the screen for a while, please do. Use the time in whatever way works best for you.
13.15 to 14.15: Stream 1 - Supervision: necessary work or that thing that coaches do?…
Steve Hearsum
Consultant, Supervisor, Exec Coach, Speaker, Author, Edge + Stretch
Steve helps leaders move beyond ‘performative learning’ to develop the practices required to act as instruments of change. His work centres on helping clients find their ‘Edge’ – the point where certainty fades – and the right degree of ‘Stretch’ to foster real learning.
The goal is to develop reflexive muscles, in service of helping clients to sense shifting organizational rhythms and learn how to dance differently when the music changes.
An accomplished educator and supervisor, Steve is an APECS Accredited Supervisor and Professional Executive Coach. He serves on the faculty for the Future of Organisations module on the Mayvin Masters in People & Organisation Development (University of Chichester) and teaches on the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations’ coaching programme, where he also serves as a Board Member.
Steve is the author of No Silver Bullet: Bursting the Bubble of the Organisational Quick Fix. He holds a Masters in Change Agent Skills & Strategies and brings an eclectic professional background – from developing business models at The Guardian to launching the UK’s first Digital Leadership Programme at Roffey Park
Institute.
Client Experience: Steve has designed and delivered systemic change and leadership programmes for a global roster of clients, including the NHS, UK government departments, technology businesses, and global motor manufacturers.
His expertise spans System Psychodynamics, Human Systems Dynamics, Systemic
Constellations, and various diagnostic instruments (Voiceprint, Firo B).
13.15 to 14.15: Stream 2 - Building a Career in OD
Antonis Kazouris, Organisational Design & Effectiveness Partner, SSP Group / ASOS
Bola Ogundeji, HR & OD Director, Zevida Ansel
Sarah Walsh, OD and Change Practitioner, Cancer Research UK
There is no single route into Organisation Development. Some practitioners arrive through HR, learning, coaching, consulting or operational leadership roles, while others discover OD later in their careers.
In this candid conversation, Bola, Antonis and Sarah will share their career journeys, the transitions that shaped them, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Together, they will explore how to build credibility, navigate career decisions, seize development opportunities and continue growing as an OD practitioner.
Whether you are new to the field or considering your next step, this session will offer practical insights, honest reflections and plenty of food for thought
About Atonis
Antonis is an Organisational Design and Effectiveness leader with over 9 years’ experience helping large, complex organisations create the structures, ways of working and leadership conditions that enable people and teams to perform at their best. He is currently the Group Senior Organisational Design Manager at SSP Group, where he leads enterprise organisation design, workforce transformation and operating model work across a FTSE listed multinational operating in 38 countries. In July, he will be joining ASOS as an Organisational Effectiveness Partner, continuing his focus on helping organisations build clarity, agility and stronger team performance as they grow and evolve.
Antonis started his career in employee engagement and employee experience, working with organisations such as Ipsos MORI, Coca Cola HBC and Willis Towers Watson before moving into workforce transformation and Organisational Design through Deloitte and SSP Group. That journey shaped his belief that Organisation Design is not just about structures and charts, but about creating the conditions for people to do their best work together. His work now brings together organisational diagnostics, operating model design, culture, leadership alignment and job architecture, with a strong focus on practical, evidence-based change that improves how organisations work in real life. He is also an AI enthusiast and is currently researching how AI is reshaping work, workforce capability and organisational effectiveness.
About Bola
Bola Ogundeji is a senior HR and Organisational Development leader with more than 25 years of experience, over 15 of which have been spent shaping people strategy and culture across complex, high-profile organisations.
Her career spans investment banking, retail, the NHS, local government, housing, and the Olympic and Paralympic movement, giving her a breadth of perspective that is both rare and practically grounded.
Most recently, Bola served as Chief People Officer and Executive Director of People and Organisational Development at the London Legacy Development Corporation, the body responsible for the renowned Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a role she held until 2025. Prior to that, she was Deputy Chief People Officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Through these roles, she built a track record of translating people strategy into tangible organisational outcomes, leading transformation at scale alongside Boards and Executive Teams.
Bola is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and currently serves as an Independent Panel Member on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s People and Culture Committee, a three-year tenure through which she contributes governance-level insight on workforce and culture matters. She also founded Zevida Ansel, her consultancy through which she works with leaders and organisations on people strategy, leadership development, organisational change and transformation, inclusion and culture change, coaching, supervision, and learning.
What sets Bola apart is the depth behind her practice. She holds a background in psychotherapy with more than eight years of experience and maintains a private practice alongside her professional work. This gives her an emotionally intelligent, human-centred lens through which she approaches leadership and OD, not as a theoretical framework, but as lived understanding of how people, systems, and culture intersect.
Bola operates with credibility across strategic, governance, and operational levels, bringing the kind of whole-person perspective to organisational development that comes from decades of leading people through real complexity.
She also authors The Musings of an HR Director, a weekly LinkedIn newsletter in which she shares honest, reflective lessons drawn from her leadership journey.
About Sarah
Sarah Walsh is a dynamic Organizatioal Development (OD) Practitioner with a passion for people, culture, and change. Embracing the mantra “variety is the spice of life,” Sarah thrives on working across multiple spaces to drive meaningful transformations within organisations.
Sarah’s impressive credentials include an MSc in Organizational Behaviour from Birkbeck, University of London, and a CMI Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Management and Leadership. She is also a certified Prosci Change Practitioner, equipped with the skills to manage and implement change effectively.
Currently, Sarah serves as Strategic Change and Delivery Lead at Cancer Research UK. She has held a number of change roles including the Lead Performance Consultant at Essex County Council, Organizational Development Consultant at The Academy of Medical Sciences and Strategic Senior Change Lead at Battersea.
In these roles, she excels in leadership development, change management, and team coaching, helping organizations navigate and make sense of change. She brings strategies to life, ensuring they are not only implemented but also effectively integrated into the organizational culture.
In addition to her roles as an OD Practitioner, Sarah is a dedicated Workplace and Career Coach. She supports individuals through career moves and transitions, offering guidance and strategies for overcoming workplace challenges such as burnout and the complexities of new managerial roles. Sarah’s holistic approach ensures that her clients feel supported and empowered to achieve their career goals.
13.15 to 14.15: Stream 3 - Developing Relational OD Skills
Gareth Evans
Lead for Specialist OD, BCUHB (NHS Wales)
In this session, Gareth will be exploring the relational skills at the heart of effective Organisational Development work, especially in organisational spaces characterised by complexity, ambiguity, diversity and emergence.
Gareth shares seven relational processes and five relational micro-practices, and connects these to core OD principles and practices around use of self as instrument, reflexivity and working live with the group processes that emerge in real-time when we work with groups, teams and systems.
Gareth is the Lead for Specialist OD in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, NHS Wales and an independent OD consultant with experience working with government, 3rd sector, education, policy, research and impact evaluation.
He is an experienced OD practitioner, coach and facilitator of small and large group processes, and the developer of the Conversational Spaces framework, Story Space Work, and a co-author of a whitepaper and OD practice framework for working with organisational trauma. He previously worked as a mental health clinician with children, adolescents and families for 18 years before moving into the field of Organisational Development.
This broad range of experiences, and roles, along with the training that has gone alongside it, combines into an approach to OD practice that is first and foremost relational in its orientation with an attention to inclusive presence, use of self, shared inquiry, dialogic working, contextual awareness and developing shared ways of understanding and adaptively intervening in systems.
14.15 to 14.30: Coffee Break
14.30 to 15.30: Practising OD in the Real World
Regan Miller
Director, Organization Effectiveness
Equinix
The demands placed on OD practitioners have never been greater. Organisations are moving faster, change is more distributed, and many of the challenges we face don’t come with clear answers.
Join Regan Miller for a practical exploration of what effective OD looks like today. Drawing on his experience leading organisation effectiveness in complex global businesses, Regan will share reflections on diagnosis, influence, leadership, change and the often-overlooked role of practitioner presence.
Together we’ll explore what separates good OD practice from exceptional OD practice, the tensions practitioners must learn to navigate, and how the field itself may need to evolve to remain relevant in the years ahead.
Senior Organization Design and Development Practitioner
Co-Author “OD for the Accidental Practitioner” and “OD for the Intentional Practitioner”
Regan Miller is a leading organization design and development consultant, currently practicing as a Director Organization Effectiveness at Equinix.
Regan previously served in the private sector in training and development positions. Across her public sector career, she has served in civilian positions within the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Department of Army, and the Defense Logistics Agency.
Regan has extensive experience in the full scope of operational human resource management within Staffing, Classification, Performance Management and Training; she has served in two first line supervisor positions, one of which was overseas. Regan has worked in HR consulting roles leading work in Workforce and Succession Planning, Organizational Design, Results-Oriented Performance Culture, and Organization Development. This led her to partner with Federal agencies to improve workforce practices and structures including the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, and multiple components of the Department of Labor, among others.
Now at Equinix, Regan supports cross-functional organization design at the Enterprise level. She is also responsible for leading enterprise initiatives focused on future ready work and teams, enabling AI adoption, and adaptive change practices.
Regan earned a B.S. in Psychology from Salisbury University, and a M.S. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Baltimore. Regan is a Certified Organization Design Professional (CODP), and is certified in the Organization Culture Inventory (OCI) and Organization Effectiveness Inventory (OEI) from Human Synergistics. Also, Regan is a Certified Professional Coach (ACPC) from the College of Executive Coaching.
Off duty, Regan has competed in Power Lifting competitions and spends as much time as possible in outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, and kayaking. She and her husband enjoy taking their American Bulldog, Lucy, and their son Logan on as many adventures as possible.
15.30 to 16.15: Day 1 Reflection – Questions, Patterns and Possibilities
David Hayden
Consultant
Talent Delivers
To close the day, David Hayden will host an end-of-day reflection session, joined by a selection of speakers, guests and contributors from across the conference.
Together, they’ll reflect on the key themes, insights and questions that emerged during the day, helping participants make sense of what they’ve heard, identify what resonates most, and consider what they might take forward into their own practice.
With over 30 years experience across a range of people practice disciplines including, organisation design, organisation development, L&D, recruitment and strategic workforce planning as well as designing and delivering leadership and management development programmes, David is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and is the co-author of L&D Practice in the Workplace 5th Ed with Kathy Beevers and Adjacent Learning with Steve George.
He chaired the CIPDs OD conference and has delivered a number of keynote speaches. He has also appeared on a range of podcasts including Org Dev, CIPD and MindTools and occasionally blogged for People Management.
He has a wealth of experience working in the public sector, distribution, finance and retail and this is completed with his role of Lean Engineer working in a number of manufacturing sites across the Midlands and North of England.
He has worked freelance since Jan 2024 and is working with a number of clients in the L&D arena who are looking to get a deeper understanding of the world of OD&D and is mentoring a number of people.
A keen runner, he can be found most Saturdays either running or volunteering at his local parkrun, and in November 2025 got a pb for the marathon in 3:39:21!
David can be contacted via email david@talentdelivers.co.uk , his website, TalentDelivers.co.uk , or via his linked in profile